


Any closer and you'll disappear from sight (don't bother with the feelings; we'll just set them all alight)

by jannika



Category: Liv and Maddie
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:38:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2558270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jannika/pseuds/jannika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College AU. There are literal sparks the morning Joey and Diggie meet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Any closer and you'll disappear from sight (don't bother with the feelings; we'll just set them all alight)

**Author's Note:**

> You know that tumblr text post that warns you not to joke ship things? Please take the existence of this fic as reason to take that post very seriously. This fic is the answer to a prompt for a fic meme I did _"write something Liv & Maddie so it exists. Diggie/Joey. AU where they meet in college, perhaps?"_ It was only meant to be a drabble. But here we are. I wasn't going to move this off of my tumblr and on to Ao3 but then I thought maybe other people look at the Liv and Maddie section- that did not exist before this fic- and are sad that it's all empty. So. 
> 
> I obviously own absolutely nothing.

When he'd signed up for work study, Joey had imagined something a little more dignified. Scientific. Not completely terrible. He'd thought he could maybe label things in a lab or do some data entry. They'd put him at the gym's front desk. The gym. He'd thought he'd seen the last of mandatory gym time on high school graduation, but no. He's been assigned to sit at the front desk and sign people out and give out locker keys. From 6am to 9am, three times a week, even. Early morning jocks, Joey thinks, are even worse than regular jocks. All that dedication. All that sweating all over the desk at hours Joey would be asleep if he had any say in it. 

He doesn't, though. Have a say. He'd tried and they'd sort of laughed at him at the work study office and said, _maybe when you're a junior, kid_ , to his request for a better assignment. So here he is. At least there are fewer of them at this hour, the jocks, and the ones that do come in are such dedicated experts they can fend for themselves. All Joey has to do, normally, is nod at them and slide keys across the desk. He rarely bothers to take off his headphones or look up from whatever he's brought to read. 

On the second Wednesday in October at around 7:15 am, he's halfway through the seventh installment in his favorite space-pirate-themed graphic novel series, when someone waves their hands in front of his face. He looks up, annoyed.

"Yes?" he says to the jock in front of him. Tall, big eyes, panicked sort of look on his face. Whatever. 

"There's a problem," the jock says, still waving his hands. 

"Okay," Joey says, bored already. Once or twice this has happened, someone has come and told him that someone else is on their favorite… exercise… thing, or something equally inane, and Joey has told them it wasn't his problem and then turned his music up and ignored them until they went away. He assumes this will be more of the same. 

"A big problem!" Jock-boy says, "the elliptical closest to the weight room is sparking!"

"What?" Joey asks.  
"Sparking, dude! Actual sparks and smoke coming from it," the jock says. Oh. Well, fuck. That's an actual problem, then. Joey tries to remember the procedure for things like this, he tries to remember what an elliptical is. 

"Really?" Joey asks, buying a little time. Jock guy waves his hands again. He looks really distressed about this. 

"Come look!" he says. 

"Um," Joey says, but then the jock guy is actually pacing and looking sort of sick. Joey sighs and gets up, puts his headphones down to save his place in the novel and leaves his desk to follow the guy. 

"See!" the guy says, pointing broadly when they get there. Sure enough, the machine has actual smoke coming out of it. From the weight room, a guy who is about the size of three Joeys looks at it and them in a disinterested way. Joey rolls his eyes and pulls out his cell phone and dials the programmed in number for campus maintenance he's put in for this job. A bored-sounding guy on the other end says he'll be right down, but to evacuate everyone from the gym and shut it down for a while, just in case. Joey hangs up and sighs deeply. That sounds like a lot of work. 

"I'll help!" the jock says, still sort of bouncing and glaring at the smoking machine with distrust. 

"What?"

"I heard him over the phone! I can help you evacuate people!" the jock says, and then he runs off to yell at the weight room guy before Joey can say anything else. Well. He didn't want to do it anyway. He heads back to the desk to make an announcement and pull out the closure signs from the drawer. By the time he does, and by the time jock guy has rounded up the half dozen early morning patrons, both maintenance and actual gym management have shown up and sent Joey back to his dorm room for the morning. He packs his stuff and heads out behind the jocks, all grumbling about missing their workout.

The first jock guy, the one to alert him to the sparks, slides up beside him.

"That was exciting!" he says. He's sweaty, and it's sort of making his shirt stick to him and his muscles. Oh. His shirt that, now that Joey reads it says, _Annual Cheddar Brat Roll: 76 years, thousands of pretzels._

"Are you from Wisconsin?" Joey asks. He wasn't actually planning to say anything else to the jock, but muscles and jocks and cheddar brat is so much like high school and home that Joey gets a wave of longing for a place he'd been so glad to get away from.

"I am! Are you?" the jock says. He's looks a lot less panicked now, smile and eyes warm.

"Just outside Madison," Joey says, nodding.

"Me too!" the guy says, eyes wide, like this is the most amazing news he has ever heard. Then he grins and looks down, running his fingers across his shirt. Joey doesn't watch. At all. "Not so much cheese rolling out here, huh?"

"Not that I've seen," Joey says, smiling back.

"My record was three pretzel castles in one roll," the guy says, half proud and half rolling his eyes like he knows how that sounds. Joey thinks, _my personal record is making the student body president miss his cheddar rolling time slot because we were in a bathroom stall together at the time,_ but doesn't say it.

"My sisters were always good at it, some sort of twin cheating thing," Joey says. They're still walking, not really towards his dorm, either.

"You have twin sisters?" the guy asks.

"Yeah, older, and a younger brother, too," Joey says. The guy grins at this, still wide-eyed.

"I'm the oldest of seven," he says, running his hands down his shorts like he's reaching for pockets he doesn't have.

"That is a lot," Joey says. Four had always felt like a million; sometimes his dorm seems quiet in comparison, despite being filled with three floors of doubled-up freshman.

"Yeah," the guy says, nodding, "I'm Diggie, by the way."

"Joey," Joey says, taking the guy's (big, strong, giant) hand when he reaches out to shake it.

"So, Joey from Wisconsin who works at the gym, do you want to go get coffee with me? Since you're not working now," Diggie says.

"Um," Joey says. Diggie's face falls.

"You don't have to, or anything!" Diggie says quickly.

"I like coffee," Joey says, Diggie smiles again. Joey wonders if he's reading this wrong. Because, Diggie is clearly at least a sophomore and he's a jock and his shirt is clinging to his muscles and he still looks like he thinks the fact that they both have siblings and are from Wisconsin is the most amazing of things. But he’s pretty sure, like, 87% sure, that Diggie wants to go to coffee because he is _interested._

*

It turns out Diggie is a junior and that he plays basketball and runs track and is super excited about everything ever in a way Joey should probably find frustrating. It’s sort of cute, though. What’s slightly less cute is that his 87% is down to about 73% because that excited-about-everything thing makes Joey think that it might just be that Diggie is just that friendly and excited about Wisconsin. He’s easy to talk to, though, and easier still to look at. Their coffee talk lasts for over an hour and after Joey finds himself with Diggie’s number in his phone and another firm handshake and a crush.

*

Literally not even five hours later, after Joey’s third class of the day, he checks his phone and has one from Diggie. (78%?)

 _You said you played drums, right?_ the text reads. Joey shakes his head and types back,

 _I am amazing at drums._ because if his odds are still over 50%, it never hurts to sell himself a little.

 _Great! Do you want to be in a band?_ Diggie replies before Joey has made it back to his dorm. He raises his eyebrows. 

_Band?_ he types back. At coffee Diggie had said he played guitar, but not like it was a serious thing and not like he was in a band. 

_Yeah! Come over later and we can play together and work out a sound!!!!_ Diggie sends. Joey counts the exclamation marks, and throws his odds up a few points. 

_Tonight?_ he sends back, and his phone lights up almost immediately with an address and a time. Okay then. 

*

“I think I have a date with a jock,” Joey says. 

“You think?” Maddie says back, sounding faintly distracted. 

“Either that, or was already on one this morning. Or this is a second one? Help me decode jock,” Joey says. He can almost hear Maddie’s eyeroll through the phone.

“Hang on,” she says, “Liv’s in here too, I’m going to put you on speaker.”

“Liv doesn’t date jocks,” Joey mutters, hearing the echo when the phone clicks over to speaker in his sisters’ apartment. 

“I have too!” Liv says. “That one time!”

“Joey has a date, he thinks, with a jock,” Maddie says. Joey can hear them moving around, probably getting ready for their own night. 

“He thinks? You think?” Liv echoes. 

“We didn’t say it was a date,” Joey says, “or maybe he did. In jock language.”

“That’s really not a thing,” Maddie says.

“Well, it kind of is,” Liv says, “you talk about things I don’t understand all the time.”

“Basketball terms are in English!” Maddie says.

“If you say so,” Liv says. 

“Hello! I have a date in forty-five minutes! Maybe! Help!” Joey says, pulling the attention back. Twins. 

“Okay, a date where?” Maddie asks. 

“His apartment,” Joey says. 

“Oh, naughty! I’m telling mom,” Liv says, laughing on the other end. Joey scowls. 

“Not helpful!” Joey says. There is still part of him, though, that will always be grateful he can have these conversations with his sisters, that he’d been able to, in the summer between his junior and senior year of high school, come out to them in a conversation that had gone from terrifying to hugs in less than five seconds. 

“You’re going to his apartment and you don’t know if it’s a date?” Maddie says, sighing, “how did it get this far?”

“I just met him this morning,” Joey says. He feels like they’re missing the point a little here. 

“And you’re going back to his place?” Maddie asks. 

“We had coffee after the gym fire and we traded numbers and now I’m supposed to be over there in thirty-eight minutes!” Joey says. 

“He invited you for coffee and then over to his place tonight?” Liv questions.

“Yes,” Joey says. 

“You don’t need us,” Liv says. 

“Call us back to invite us to the wedding,” Maddie says. 

“Have fun, be safe!” Liv says. They hang up then. They actually just hang up on him. Joey considers calling back when his phone dings again with a text, 

_Good luck!_ from Maddie and then,

 _Send me a picture of him! And don’t forget! You promised to come to my show next weekend!_ From Liv. He rolls his eyes and slides his phone in his pocket. Thirty-five minutes. 86% chance.

*  
“I made dinner! If you didn’t eat, that is,” Diggie says when Joey shows up. It turns out he has his own place, just a little off campus and really nice. It smells good, too, whatever he’s making. 

“I didn’t,” Joey says. He scans the apartment, noticing movie posters mixed in with all of the jock stuff, and a guitar leaned against the couch. 

“Great! I didn’t know if you ate meat or not, I mean I didn’t want to assume, so I made two sauces,” Diggie says. Joey feels his odds going up by the second. 

“We grilled meat when it was snowing out,” Joey says. Diggie giggles at that. Joey eyes scan around again, and this time catch on a bookshelf that contains some titles that. So like, 95%, then, if textbooks that look queer studies on the bookshelf are any indication. 

“Us too!” Diggie says, smiling broadly. Joey looks him up and down. He’s got a button up on now, a nice one, and he’s not sweaty anymore, and he smells like cologne under the sauce smell, and really at very worst here given all the clues he’s probably going to be met with kind apologizing at the very worst. Joey thinks his odds are good. He decides to go for it. 

“I mean, gay was one thing. Vegetarian? My dad would probably cry,” Joey says. Diggie pauses for just a second, then grins again, even bigger this time. 

“Mine too,” Diggie says, “I once had a birthday party at this place that only serves meat, the sandwiches are just meat with more meat in the middle.”

“I’ve been there, I think,” Joey says, grinning. They just sort of grin at each other for a minute, and it’s nice. He’s so nice to look at, really. 

“So, dinner?” Diggie says, “And then music?”

“Sure,” Joey says. They sit and, as Joey probably should have guessed, the food is as good as it smells. He feels pretty certain Diggie is going to be really good at the guitar too. 

“Thanks for coming,” Diggie says, passing butter over. 

“Yeah,” Joey says, and then rolls his dice again. “Is this a date?”

“Well,” Diggie stops and stills, “do you want it to be?”

“I don’t normally date jocks,” Joey says, but he smirks as he does. “Although that might have been more their choice than mine.”

“We’re not all a hive mind, all sorts of people are athletes,” Diggie says, incredibly earnest. 

“I’ve heard that,” Joey says, “I haven’t always had the best luck with athletes, other than Maddie, but she’s family.”

“So let me make it up to you,” Diggie says. Joey smirks again. 

“On our date?” he asks. Diggie smiles. 

“Yeah, on our date,” he says. 

“Well I have never had a jock cook me a meal this good, Maddie’s a terrible cook. What else can you do?” Joey asks. It comes out a little more sexual than it had sounded in his head. Whatever. 

“Is there something in particular you want demonstrated?” Diggie asks, tone a little challenging and very sexual. A competitiveness in his eyes that Joey knows so well. 

“Surprise me,” Joey says. Diggie grins and reaches across the table and pulls Joey in for a kiss. It’s exactly what Joey was going for, so not technically a surprise, really, but still the best outcome. 

*  
They never do play any music that night, and there is a terrible mess on Diggie’s kitchen floor where sauce has boiled over and they might have knocked a plate or two off the table and Joey is exhausted and sweaty himself now, breathing heavy and curled up in Diggie’s bed with him. 

“This is not what I thought my shortened workout would lead to,” Diggie says, hands still all over Joey, casual and firm. Joey shivers. 

“I think this counts,” Joey says. Diggie laughs in his ear, soft and stupidly sexy. 

“I’m just getting started,” Diggie says. Joey swallows. Who is this guy, honestly? 

“Oh?” Joey asks. 

“I can still think of a lot of things I could demonstrate, as long as you still wanted,” Diggie says. Joey nods. 

“I could be talked into that,” he says. Diggie laughs again, hands still all over Joey but soft now, patient, like he wants to keep him. 

“Stay? I’ll make you breakfast,” Diggie asks. Joey stills and then relaxes. 

“Do you always move this fast?” Joey asks, Diggie reaches down and grabs his hand. 

“Never,” he says, sounding incredibly sincere, “I was the king of awkward slow moves for years. But I want you to stay, Joey from Wisconsin.”

“Okay,” Joey says, nodding. He wants to stay. “My sisters told me this was a date,” he adds after a minute, grinning.

“Yeah? Tell me about them?” Diggie asks, propping himself up on his shoulder to look at Joey while he talks. Joey talks. Joey wants to stay. Joey thinks this feels like something more, something real, something that will last longer than bathroom stalls during bratfest, that will last longer than tonight. Something he might want to keep, too. He wants to keep the way Diggie looks at him. 

Maybe his work study isn’t so bad after all.


End file.
